Roosevelt Field mall is shown on July 10, 2009. Photo Credit: Yana Paskova

Roosevelt Field mall is shown on July 10, 2009. (Credit: Yana Paskova )

A construction worker and his wife have been awarded $7.6 million by a Manhattan jury four years after he was badly injured in a fall off a scaffold at Roosevelt Field mall, court documents show.

Santiago Cortes, 53, of College Point, Queens, "sustained severe and permanent personal injuries" in the April 15, 2010, fall, according to his negligence suit against the mall owner, The Retail Property...

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A construction worker and his wife have been awarded $7.6 million by a Manhattan jury four years after he was badly injured in a fall off a scaffold at Roosevelt Field mall, court documents show.

Santiago Cortes, 53, of College Point, Queens, "sustained severe and permanent personal injuries" in the April 15, 2010, fall, according to his negligence suit against the mall owner, The Retail Property Trust Inc., and J.C. Penney.

State labor law requires all contractors and owners of buildings to "give proper protection" to individuals who work on scaffolds, ladders and the like.

After a nine-day trial, the State Supreme Court jury on June 24 awarded Cortes $4.5 million for pain and suffering, and about $300,000 for medical bills. He also received about $1.3 million for loss of earnings.